


Malfunction

by heygaymayday



Series: Look Out, Jackson Town [3]
Category: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romantic Friendship, Traumatized Ellie (The Last of Us), Unresolved Romantic Tension, Useless Lesbian Ellie (The Last of Us)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25603834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heygaymayday/pseuds/heygaymayday
Summary: She doesn't want to talk about it, that winter on the road with Joel. She can’t stomach the idea of Dina seeing her that way, seeing her as a scared, pitiful kid, hungry and crying on the ground from fear and frustration. The thought that Dina might pity her, even for a second, is too much. No fucking way.
Relationships: Cat/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Jesse (The Last of Us)
Series: Look Out, Jackson Town [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854280
Comments: 111
Kudos: 508





	1. Old Microwave

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series. Can be read as a stand-alone but includes some running jokes/themes from previous installments.
> 
> Love hearing thoughts and talking TLOU, find me on Twitter: @heygaymayday

**_ELLIE_ ** .

“How are you doing that?” Dina asks with some mixture of suspicion and awe.

Ellie nocks another arrow, takes a deep breath, draws and aims again at the target down the range. She lets it loose and it flies, strikes, sinks in just next to the previous arrow.

She shrugs at Dina, though the gesture isn’t without a certain amount of teasing bravado. 

“I’m just that good,” Ellie says, drawing another arrow, “Y’know...either you got it or you don’t.”

Dina rolls her eyes, which only makes Ellie find the situation funnier. It’s kind of a personal goal, to see how many times she can make Dina roll her eyes in a day. She’s up to three for today, but it’s still early.

“Show me,” Dina says, “Show me exactly what you’re doing--” She holds up her own bow for emphasis.

“Okay, come here,” Ellie says, looking way too pleased with herself, “I’ll show you how it’s done. Okay, turn around--alright, nock the arrow--”

She leans in close, lays a hand on Dina’s arm, “This elbow--make sure it’s pointing out, not down--great.”

“Okay--just take a deep breath, eye on the target--now don’t try too hard. Just trust yourself, that you know what you’re doing, that the arrow’s gonna go where it needs to go.”

Dina takes a deep breath, gets very still; Ellie knows she shouldn't do it, shouldn't be standing here behind Dina a little longer, a little closer, than strictly necessary. She's trying hard to detach herself from this, to disengage from this hopeless attachment she feels here. 

But she lingers anyway, just for a moment. She's only human, goddammit.

When she steps away, Dina lets the arrow go, and it releases with a dull  _ twang. _

It gets closer to the center of the target, still on the outside of Ellie’s cluster of arrows, but it’s an improvement.

“Huh,” Dina says, impressed but trying  _ not _ to sound impressed, “Who taught you how to do that?”

Ellie looks down the range at the target, slowly filling up with arrows. She thinks about that winter, with Joel in the floor of that garage, barely alive. 

She shrugs again, vague and evasive.

“Kinda taught myself.”

“Taught yourself?” Dina repeats, “What do you mean  _ taught yourself?” _

“I mean...I found a bow, and I needed food, so I figured it out.”

“What, like--before Joel? Back in Boston? I thought they fed you guys back in Boston--”

“No, after Boston. Joel was there. It was just--it was complicated,” She moves away, down toward the target to collect the arrows.

She doesn’t want to talk about it. That winter had been one of the hardest, most fucked up times of her already pretty fucked up life, and she’s managed to avoid talking about it ever since. Dina doesn’t need to know about those long, pathetic nights she spent huddled by Joel’s unconscious body, reading jokes to nobody, just to hear a voice--but also just in case Joel could hear her. Dina doesn’t need to know about the day she found the bow, but couldn’t shoot shit with it, just kept getting the inside of her arm snapped with the bowstring; how she’d collapsed to the ground and cried, hollow with hunger and fear and desperation, her arm a black and blue mess. 

And Dina definitely doesn’t need to know about David, and everything that went on inside that fucked up place.

She can’t stomach the idea of Dina seeing her that way, seeing her as a scared, pitiful kid, hungry and crying on the ground. The thought that Dina might pity her, even for a second, is too much. No fucking way. No  _ fucking  _ way. She would _die_ before that would happen, before giving anyone a reason to feel sorry for her--especially Dina.

“Did I...say something?” Dina asks as Ellie returns with the arrows.

“What? No--” Ellie says the words but she won’t look at her, just separates their arrows in her hands, “No, I’m just--I think I’m tired. I’m gonna head home.”

She slips her own arrows back into their quiver, hands Dina’s back to her. Dina accepts them, but she’s still looking at Ellie sideways, as if she’s trying to decide whether or not she wants to push the issue. 

“Ah--well, listen,” Dina looks down at the arrows in her hands for a moment, “You know there’s that party coming up, the big end-of-summer thing, and--well, are you going?”

Ellie studies her face, trying to figure out where she’s going with this before she commits to anything irrevocably. She knows Dina is going with Jesse, so it’s not as though that can be her purpose for asking--so what’s the point here?

“I...maybe,” Ellie says evasively.

“I heard that, y’know...that you and Cat were kind of taking a break.”

Ellie looks down, nods.

“Yeah, she...was pretty pissed, after the lake,” Ellie says uncomfortably; she thinks about Cat, about the way that one  _ yes  _ had hung in the silence between them that night, heavy and insurmountable, "And there were...y'know, other things. She said she needed some space, so...that's what we're doing."

"Oh…" Dina says, and she seems surprised by this information, " _ She  _ needs space from  _ you?  _ That's...definitely not what I was expecting. Are you...okay? Do you wanna talk about it?"

Ellie scoffs, shrugs, "No, I'm fine. There isn't anything to talk about. She wants space, I'm giving her space. I'm a big girl, I can handle it."

"Right," Dina sighs, "I almost forgot about this whole thing you do."

"What thing?"

"Oh, this schtick where you pretend you don't have feelings. Like you're a--shit, what's that movie you and Joel like so much? The one you made me watch? Y'know, with the guy, he's a soldier, and he falls into the vat of acid, and they give him all the machine body parts--?"

" _ Robosoldier?" _

_ "Robosoldier,"  _ Dina repeats, "You like to pretend you're a  _ robosoldier.  _ Like-- _ my name is Ellie, I haven't felt any feelings since they replaced my heart with an old microwave." _

"I...I don't have an old microwave for a heart," Ellie says, unsure if she's amused or offended, "But I would totally replace it with one if I had the chance, it sounds awesome. Just--popcorn, all day, every day. Right here--" She pats the left side of her chest and laughs.

Dina rolls her eyes--mentally, Ellie adds a tally to the count, for a total of  _ four _ \--and she gives a frustrated sigh.

"I know you're still human down in there somewhere,  _ Robosoldier _ ," Dina says, "And it's not a crime to be bummed out that your girlfriend  _ needs space." _

"I'm not bummed out. I'm not anything," Ellie insists easily, "It's life. Although I didn't expect her to ask  _ Sergio  _ to go to the big party with her. Kinda got the impression she wasn't a fan of his--"

"So let me get this straight," Dina says, "Your girlfriend needs space--"

"Yeah."

"--and she's going to the big town party with a very handsome tambourine player--"

" _ Very  _ seems kind of strong and I'm not sure why you're using  _ tambourine player  _ like it's a win for him but--yeah, okay."

"--and you don't have  _ any  _ feelings about any of this?"

"Well," Ellie says slowly, looks down at her shoes, "I mean, now that you put it like that, now that everything's laid out all at once and you're using words like  _ very handsome  _ and  _ tambourine player _ ...I guess it does make me...makes me feel...something..." She puts a hand on her chest, clutches it dramatically, "Oh, wait, no--it's just the popcorn finishing up."

Another eye roll--five.

"Okay, well--the new people, who came in last month? They're going to the party, too, and Maria wants us to, y'know...make sure they feel really welcome."

"This doesn't sound like a good mission for a robosoldier, Dina," Ellie says, "You just got finished tell me my heart is an old microwave--warm welcomes aren't exactly my gig."

"Please," Dina says, "I don't know them that well and it'll just be me and Jesse otherwise and, y'know--stuff's more fun when you're there."

Ellie sighs.

"You just want me around for the popcorn, right?"

Dina laughs lightly, shakes her head.

"I guess I'll come," Ellie sighs, "But if I hear one goddamn tambourine, I'm out, Dina. I mean it."

Dina laughs again, and Ellie is trying really hard to not like that sound so much. She's really trying to detach herself from it.

But it just isn't working.  
  



	2. Robot-Speak

_**ELLIE**_.

Ellie doesn’t make a habit of looking at herself in the mirror. 

She tells herself it’s because she doesn’t give a shit what she looks like--and that’s not _un_ true. In a world where any day could be the day your face gets ripped off by a goddamn fungus nightmare monster, it’s hard to care what you look like. And it helps that things have changed--it’s not like it was in the pre-outbreak world. There’s a lot less value invested in arbitrary aesthetics, and a lot more value invested in being able to shoot fungus nightmare monsters before they rip someone’s face off. 

So it’s never mattered, what she looks like. She’d even joked to Dina, in the height of summer, that she might just shave her head. It was still funny, thinking about Dina’s face--scandalized, alarmed, outraged. _But...I like your hair,_ Dina had said, _I really like your hair. Please, don’t? Like, I’ll support you in whatever hair journey you decide to take, but--also please, don’t._ She’d been so surprisingly sincere that, of course, Ellie had promised she wouldn’t do it. 

But there were other reasons she didn’t look in the mirror. It was hard, sometimes, to reconcile what she saw with what she knew about herself. It was more like looking through a window at someone else, rather than seeing an honest picture of herself. The girl in the mirror looked so calm, so even and normal. Until you looked really hard, and you saw the break in the line of her brow, that little scar. And then the eyes--there was something off about the eyes for sure. Wide and green and dense with a pervasive sadness. She wondered if others saw it--did she look like this to everyone? Tired and sad and beaten up, scarred?

She didn’t want to look like that. But it didn’t seem to matter what she did--when she looked into the mirror, looked into her own eyes, all she could see was some hollow, barely real pretender. Some imposter play acting at being normal, at belonging. A wild animal brought into the house. She saw someone who was only barely a person at all.

And that was the trouble with all of this, with Dina and Cat and patrols and parties and Jackson. The longer she was here, the longer she went through these motions, the less real they felt. The less she felt like she deserved it. Any of it.

So she’s looking at herself in the mirror tonight and she’s trying to decide if she feels real. Trying to decide if she’s even really in here, inside her own skin. She’s trying to make it true, to tell herself this is fine, that _she’s_ fine. That she’s not spiraling, losing herself a little every day.

She straightens the collar of her shirt, like it matters, and avoids her own gaze in the glass. She thinks about Cat, and what Dina had said--that it was okay to be bummed out over it. But she hadn’t lied--she wasn’t upset. In fact, she had felt very little when Cat left that night and that was really fucking terrifying. 

Was she really as broken as she felt?

She lets out a deep breath, watches the girl in the mirror do the same thing. She shakes her head, finally meets her own eyes.

“Just be fucking normal, okay?” She tells her reflection, “Just...be fucking normal.”

\--

 _ **ELLIE**_.

It’s a warm night, but there’s that feeling in the air, a kind of crispness that speaks of the coming fall, of falling leaves and impending snow. 

It’ll be that time of year again soon when everyone is freezing half to fucking death, when patrols will be a total misery and Ellie will have to switch her canvas sneakers for boots--but for tonight, they’re just here to celebrate whatever’s left of the freedom and warmth of summer.

Well, other people are here to celebrate. Ellie’s just here because she said she would be here, and she’s already counting down the minutes until that obligation is technically fulfilled and she can go home. She’s hanging around the edge of the crowd and watching people mill about, talking and laughing and dancing. Dina is, of course, completely in heaven. 

It’s something, it really is, watching Dina work her magic. Ellie can hardly feel like there’s a real human behind her own face, but Dina? Dina is _real_ , through and through, and that authenticity draws people in, keeps them close. 

“--so Talia and I,” Dina’s saying to a small crowd of people, “We’re coming all the way from New Mexico, and we haven’t seen another person since we left, right?” 

The crowd nods, their attention glued to her, to the animated way she’s telling the story.

“So we stop and camp in this little grocery store and when we wake up, there’s this _guy_ \--”

The crowd responds with signs of distress and fear. 

“--and he’s, like, standing over us and we’re like-- _take anything, man, just leave us alone._ And he’s, like...he’s like…” She pauses for dramatic effect, “ _Y’all got any toothpaste?”_

The crowd is baffled, gives a few anxious laughs.

“Right? Like, excuse me, sir? _Yeah, y’all got any toothpaste or what?_ So Talia digs out the last little bit we had, hands it over--and he just fucking _leaves._ Like--I think about him all the time still. Has he kept his commitment to dental hygiene? I just have questions, y’know--”

The crowd is laughing with her, enthralled and relaxed and happy. 

“Damn, girl can tell a story, can’t she?” A man says next to Ellie.

Ellie looks up, not realizing just how hard she’d been staring at Dina just now, how she’d been listening with just as much rapt attention as the rest of the little crowd. 

“Yeah, she’s really good at that stuff,” Ellie says, and she takes a drink from her little glass.

“I’m Daniel, by the way,” The guy says, and he sticks his hand out toward Ellie, “I’m, uh--I guess I’m one of the new people, you’d say.”

Ellie shakes his hand with some hesitation. He’s tall, with a lean build and square shoulders; he has a full, neatly trimmed beard, dark like his hair, long and swept back away from his temples. There’s a little scar on the bridge of his nose, but Ellie supposes he’s handsome, probably only a little older than her.

“Oh,” She says, remembers what Dina said about the new people and how they were supposed to make them feel welcome or some bullshit, “Uh...I’m Ellie,” She says.

She probably needs to say more than that, right? Fuck, what is she supposed to say to this person? What kind of words make a person feel welcome? She hates this, hates trying to sort out these social situations. Maybe she really does have an old microwave for a heart.

“So where did you guys come from?” She asks, and she hopes that’s the right kind of question, the thing she’s supposed to say, because she really has no fucking clue.

“Oh, round about the West Virginia-Kentucky border,” He says, and she can hear it then, a vibrant little twang on his vowels, an Appalachian accent, “Bout an hour outside the Charleston QZ.”

“We have a couple kids from the Charleston QZ,” Ellie says, “Well, I wouldn’t call Lee a kid. I wouldn’t call Lee anything but _Lee_ , honestly--I’m pretty sure even the infected are a little scared of her.”

“Yeah, well...we make ‘em tough in West Virginia, so that makes sense,” He gives a small laugh, “It’s a mess down there. Glad to hear other people’re gettin’ out, too.”

“It’s kind of a mess everywhere,” Ellie says.

“You ain’t wrong,” He concedes, leans against the high patio table they’re standing at, “There’s funny business down there, though. People takin’ it on themselves to re-establish the government. The New United States, they’re callin’ themselves.”

“That already sounds way fucked up,” Ellie says skeptically. 

“Oh, it is, it’s very way fucked up,” He says, “All this time, people still think if you slap a flag on a thing, it can do no wrong. You wrap yourself up in a big enough flag...people’ll let you do goddamn anything, I reckon. And that’s pretty much the state of things down there, when we left.”

“Well...sounds like you guys made a good choice, coming out west.”

“I think we did,” He says, looking out at the calm, gentle crowd, “I think we really did. You folks’ve built something real special here.”

“That’s all Tommy and Maria,” Ellie says quickly, “I just live here.”

“You’re one of the patrolmen though, right?” He asks, “I’ve seen you guys comin’ and goin’. Seems like y’all do important enough work.”

“I guess,” Ellie shrugs, and her eyes have already wandered back to Dina, who’s busy regaling an audience with a whole new story, “Just doin’ our part, y’know.”

She catches sight of Cat across the way, underneath the warm glow of the string lights, talking with Sergio. Ellie tries to really look at Sergio, to figure out if he’s really as handsome as Dina said. Maybe, Ellie thinks, but it’s hard to tell, hard to be objective. Cat is certainly enjoying chatting with him. She’s smiling, and if Ellie’s being honest, it’s been a while since she’s seen Cat smile.

God, how long had she been fucking up things with Cat? How long had she been making Cat miserable? How fucking unfair was it, that she had been pulling Cat down into her own bullshit problems, without even realizing?

Cat deserved better. 

“Hey...y’alright?” Daniel asks with a gentle laugh.

“What? Oh, yeah,” She says, “Sorry, I’m just...a little out of it.”

“It’s all good,” He says easily, “I was just wonderin’--what’s a person gotta do to get on those patrols? Been here a month, seems about time I should start carryin’ my weight, y’know.”

“Oh, uh--well, you’ll have to talk with Martin, he’s over the patrolmen. Or you could talk to Tommy or Joel, probably.”

“Martin, Tommy, Joel…” He repeats, as if trying to memorize the list, “I...don’t think I know any of them,” He laughs, “But I’ll figure it out.”

Ellie can practically hear Dina’s voice in her head-- _make them feel welcome, robosoldier._

“I can...I can help you out,” She says, “If you’re free in the morning, I can help you get it sorted.”

“Why, that’d be dandy, miss,” He says, smiles, shows even, white teeth, “I’d appreciate the hell out of it. I’ll see you in the morning, then?”

“Sure,” Ellie says, “Eight o’clock, outside the dining hall. I’ll take you where you need to go.”

Dina wanders over at about that moment, gives a small wave to Daniel.

“You put on quite a show, ma’am,” Daniel says to her with a small laugh, “Had ever one of ‘em on the edge of their seats.”

“It’s a gift,” Dina says dismissively, “I’m Dina, by the way.”

“Daniel,” He says, reaches out to shake her hand, “This here’s Ellie, but I get the feelin’ y’all already met before.”

“A time or two, yeah,” Dina says, glancing sideways at Ellie.

“She’s gonna help me get on with the patrolmen,” Daniel says, “Y’all are mighty nice people, I gotta say. I’m gonna turn in for the night, but I’ll be there at 8 AM, scout’s honor, Miss Ellie.”

He gives a small wave to them both, pulls away from the table and leaves.

“Miss Ellie _?”_ Dina fixes a questioning glare on Ellie, leans close; a smirk pulls at her lips, “ _Miss Ellie?”_

“Don’t look at _me_ ,” Ellie says, “I didn’t ask to be called _miss_ anything. I was just doing what you told me to do, trying to be nice to the new people.”

“How nice _were_ you?” Dina laughs, turning to look at Daniel’s back as he weaves through the crowd.

“Uh...not the kind of nice you’re talking about,” Ellie says, “Just the regular kind of nice.”

“I mean--he’s cute. And the accent is kind of...y’know.”

“Uh...no.”

“Not even a little?”

“Nope. Not the tiniest bit. I’ve told you, it’s like...when it comes to dudes, I’m just face blind. Like they all look the same to me. They’re all just the same guy with, like, different facial hair.”

Dina laughs.

“I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just mean...I’m not into it. Not into them,” She shrugs, “Besides...he kinda looks like Joel, and that just adds a whole...other level of weird.”

Ellie shudders.

“Well, if you’re _face blind_ then how would you know he looks like Joel?”

“Ha ha, you’re very funny. If you think he’s cute, why don’t _you_ go show him around tomorrow, huh?”

“Jesse and I are...kinda back together,” Dina says, “I mean, we’ve been working on things since before the party at the lake, but I think we’re _together_ together again. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you guys just bite the bullet and get married already, goddamn,” Ellie sighs, and she realizes that she’s maybe approaching the range of _enough_ in terms of her alcohol intake for the night.

“I dunno,” Dina says, shrugs; she looks up from the table top, fixes her gaze on Ellie, “Just feels like there are still, y’know...too many loose ends. Not ready tie it all in a knot just yet."

“Yeah, well, you owe me one for being nice to this guy,” Ellie says, lays her glass down on the table, “But now I’m going home, so I don’t have to watch Sergio teach my girlfriend tambourine moves anymore.”

Dina follows Ellie’s gaze to where Sergio is miming a tambourine strike in the air; Cat copies the movement hesitantly.

“So it _does_ bother you,” Dina says, “Do you wanna talk about it now?” She’s almost eager.

“Nope,” Ellie says, “Goodnight, Dina.”

“Wait,” Dina says, “I mean--can I walk you home?”

Ellie hesitates. She should say _no._ These are the moments that divide her the most. She glances up at Cat, who’s getting the hang of the tambourine pantomiming, and she can’t hold it against the other girl for getting out when she could. For disengaging from Ellie’s bullshit, her inability to be anything but miserable. So why does Dina just keep coming back to it? Why does Dina just keep asking to come back in?

Ellie shrugs. 

“Is that robot-speak for _yes?”_ Dina asks with a teasing smirk.

Ellie rolls her eyes, turns away; Dina falls in step with her, close enough that their shoulders touch.

“Jeez, only _one_ for today,” Dina says, “I must be slacking.”

“One _what?”_ Ellie asks.

“I only made you roll your eyes once today,” Dina says, “I keep a count, you know."


	3. Gab Machines

_**DINA**_.

In the morning, Dina wakes up slowly; she's impossibly comfortable and warm, and as she takes a deep, satisfied breath, eyes still closed, she realizes that her pillow--it smells really good. Like-- _really_ good. What is that? She's trying to figure it out, trying to place it. She pulls the blankets up over her shoulders, turns her face a little further into that scent, familiar and comforting but still impossible to place. It's like the smell of fresh, clean soil during an easy rain storm, like pine trees and lush, green ferns still damp with dew. It's a little bit of woodsmoke and charcoal and something else, something she knows, something--

Oh, shit.

She remembers now.

She's in Ellie's bed.

She'd been unable to say good-bye last night at Ellie's door, had come up with the brilliant idea to goad her into a late night board game. And Ellie hadn't said _no._ Why hadn't she just said _no?_ She didn’t say _no_ \--in fact, she’d let Dina in and said, _‘Fine, but if you lose, you have to come with me to meet this Daniel guy in the morning.’_

She keeps her eyes closed. She just wants to stay here for another moment, here in the smell of rain and woodsmoke, this smell that's distinctly, unmistakably _Ellie._ Why does it make her feel like this--comfortable and calm and just... _safe?_

It takes another moment for it to cross her mind: if she's in Ellie's bed--where's Ellie?

She sits up, shields her eyes from the sunlight collecting in the curtains. The bed is empty, and Dina can't shake or look away from the part of her that is quietly disappointed by this information.

She finds Ellie a moment later--asleep on the narrow couch, one arm over the edge, fingertips nearly skimming the floor. 

Dina rolls her eyes, gives a frustrated sigh-- _why, Ellie?_ Honestly, she was ridiculous sometimes--giving up her own bed, in her own room. 

It's comforting, just for a second, to watch her like this--peaceful, relaxed, innocent.

She scans the room, finds that it's quiet and still, and maybe she should try to ignore it, the sense of comfort it brings, being surrounded by all of Ellie's favorite things, waking up here in this very _Ellie_ space--but ignoring it seems pointless. She lets herself feel it, lets herself enjoy the moment. 

The world is full of fear and uncertainty--what’s the point in ignoring this one small moment of joy? Maybe the implications are problematic and complex, but Dina tries not to worry about that right now--right now she’s just happy, and that’s enough.

On the nightstand, she notices Ellie's knife is standing at the ready, point driven down into the wood. There are dozens of marks in the surface of the table, all clustered together in a group--attesting to the fact that, as Dina already knows, Ellie does this every night--sleeps with her knife at the ready. Dina reaches out, touches those little divots in the wood around the knife blade.

It's a small, frustratingly incomplete look into what it must be like in Ellie's head. The way she's always on the precipice of brutally efficacious violence, always a breath away from descending into a blind state of binaries: _kill_ or _be killed_ . It speaks to a brilliant and unyielding survivor, a fucking savage fighter who absolutely will make it, at all costs. It says: _this is a person who should not be fucked with._

But to Dina it speaks of something else, too. It speaks of deep, unrelenting _fear._ Blazing, blinding, torturous terror that must never let up, even when she sleeps. Looking at those marks, Dina thinks of Ellie, lying awake in her bed, too scared to close her eyes and comforted only by the close proximity of a weapon. And like with _smoke_ and _fire,_ where there's _fear,_ there's _trauma._

What had happened to Ellie, before she came here? There's a desperate desire in Dina to know, and yet also a deep dread. It's unprecedented for Dina the depth of anguish it gives her just to think about it, to think of her being hurt, to think of anyone hurting her, to think of anyone having the fucking audacity to lay their _fucking_ hands on her--

 _Christ,_ the thought alone is filling Dina up with rage and she's not even out of bed yet. 

She can't go back and fix what's already happened to Ellie--but she can absolutely fuck up anyone who ever tries to hurt her again.

She pushes back the blankets, gets herself onto her feet. She goes to the couch, sits down there on the edge.

"S'too early," Ellie mumbles, eyes still closed, "G'back t'sleep."

Dina gives a soft laugh.

"It's fifteen til eight," Dina says, "We're supposed to go meet Daniel."

" _I'm_ s'pose t'meet Daniel," She says, " _You_ can keep sleeping if you want."

"Deal's a deal," Dina says, "I lost the game, I gotta come with you to meet the dashing new guy who is _definitely_ into you--"

" _Stop,"_ Ellie groans, "I was just being _nice…"_

"You're cute," Dina says, "I can't blame him."

Ellie rolls over lazily onto her back, gives a deep sigh as she stretches, long and lean next to Dina. Her pillow falls into the floor.

She looks up at Dina, folds her arms behind her head, insists on looking adorably comfortable and drowsy.

"Cute, huh?" She says, voice still heavy with sleep.

Dina rolls her eyes, grabs the pillow from the floor, tosses it toward Ellie's face. 

" _What,_ " Ellie says, catching the pillow; she sits up, fixes Dina with a lopsided grin,"You think I'm cute, it's okay to say it--"

"I _did_ say it, just now, dummy--"

"Maybe you should say it again," Ellie says, leaning in, "Like, just one more time, for those of us in the back, y’know.”

“Hmm,” Dina says, and she meets Ellie’s intent, suggestive gaze, refuses to back down; she lets the volume of her voice drop, says, “Do you always wake up this annoying, or is today special?” 

“Oh, I haven’t even _started_ being annoying yet,” Ellie says softly, “Peak annoying isn’t even until, like, 10 o’clock, at least.”

Dina grins; Ellie’s so close, and so ridiculous, and this is Dina’s favorite thing--the stupid, nonsensical way they communicate and understand each other. The way Ellie can always bounce back at her with a joke of her own, the way she keeps her on her toes. It’s just not the same with anyone else. Yes, Ellie is cute, but _this_ \--this is the thing about Ellie that keeps her coming back, that makes her linger at the door, makes her stay up until three in the morning intentionally losing at Scrabble--this connection.

And it’s true, there’s something dark in Ellie, something that obviously doesn’t even let her sleep, something that keeps a steel wall between her and the rest of the world--including Dina. But these are the moments that prove to Dina that the wall is worth getting around--someday. 

“Then I guess we’d better go meet the new guy before then, huh?” Dina says.

\--

Once Dina has borrowed a change of clothes and they’re both dressed, they head down to the designated meeting spot. Ellie grumbles the whole way, sets down very specific parameters regarding the events of the day.

“We’re just gonna take him straight to Martin. We’ll show him stuff along the way, fine, but we’re taking him right to Martin. No stopping for chit chats, or breakfast, or whatever the hell else--just straight there and _done--_ ”

Dina simply rolls her eyes. 

They find Daniel exactly where Ellie had told him to be--just outside the dining hall, which is bustling at this time of the morning with people grabbing breakfast before heading out to complete the day’s work. Only Daniel isn’t alone.

There’s a woman with him, about their age, with short, dark hair, swept back from her temples in a casual, gentle disarray. She has an intensity about her; she’s like a spring-loaded knife just freshly snapped open. There’s a scar along the line of her jaw, on the left side, the kind that for sure has a story, and only seems to make her more interesting, somehow.

The woman hangs back as Daniel shakes their hands, exchanges pleasantries, but she smiles readily enough when Daniel introduces her.

“And, uh--this is my friend, Adelaide. She’s interested in doing some of the patrolling, too--and she’s damn good at killing things what need killing, so she’d be an asset for sure.”

“I mean…” Adelaide says with a sideways glance at Daniel, “Not a great thing to brag about, killing stuff, but--I think I can help out there. You, uh--you must be Dina,” She says, and extends a hand for Dina to shake.

Dina accepts, “Yeah, and this is--”

Adelaide releases her hand, reaches toward Ellie.

“And you--well, you gotta be Ellie, right?” Adelaide smiles as Ellie takes her hand.

Dina tries to catch Ellie’s eye so they can exchange a look, a look that says _wow, these West Virginia people really enjoy their handshakes._

But Ellie’s focus is on Adelaide. 

“People around here really like to gab about you,” Adelaide says with interest, “Nice to finally put a face to the name.”

“People around here gab about everyone. Everything. All the time. Just a bunch of gab machines, honestly.”

This is the first time Dina’s ever heard Ellie use the word _gab,_ and she’s using it a lot, and it’s very weird.

Adelaide gives a small laugh, “Gab machines--I like that. Yeah, I’d say only about ten percent of it was believable--but it was a real interesting ten percent, for sure.”

“Well, we can head down to the patrol station, Martin’s probably there--” Dina starts to say.

“Have you guys had breakfast yet?” Ellie asks abruptly, “We could grab something, before we go.”

Dina stares at her in stunned silence.

What the _hell?_

“That sounds great,” Adelaide says, “Gotta say, I’m a real fan of the food around here--”

Ellie turns toward the dining hall, ducks onto the porch, and Adelaide follows. Dina and Daniel exchange a glance, and Daniel shrugs.

Well. Shit.


	4. Not Talking

_**ELLIE.** _

It's the first cool night of the year, and the air is heavy with impending rain; it gives things a strange, transitional feeling. Like the world's edges are a little unfirm, like it's a moment distinctly in flux. Like anything could change, like nothing will ever be different, like everything is still, and yet moving too fast.

Or maybe Ellie has just had one drink too many. She doesn't feel like it though. She feels pleasantly happy and open, comfortable and warm. For once, she feels like maybe she's in the right place, at the right time. 

Adelaide, walking beside her, hands the jar of beer back over; it's dark outside now, but there are just enough low, warm lights to keep the road illuminated. It's a picturesque scene, Ellie has to admit--like wandering through one of those quaint Western towns from one of Joel's old movies. Quiet and still and undeniably _pretty_ , in its way. The lights also keep Adelaide in view, and Ellie finds herself looking sidelong at the other girl when she can.

She's lean, but strong. Carries herself with a total absence of apology. There's a certain edge about her, something Ellie feels like she recognizes, in a way. Something she's seen in the mirror. 

"This...is--just literally the worst thing I've ever tasted," Adelaide says with a cough that turns into a laugh, "Good god, y'all gotta work on that."

Ellie laughs, "Yeah, they haven't exactly perfected the distillery thing yet--but it's better than nothing."

"Are you _sure?"_ Adelaide says, "Because...Ellie, it's really bad. It's _real_ bad."

"Okay, so _beer_ isn't our strongest selling point yet," Ellie concedes, "But, y'know--we've got other good stuff going on."

"Oh, I know," Adelaide says, turning her gaze on the street ahead, lined with neat, quiet wooden buildings in the dark, "Lots of stuff here worth stayin' for, I know."

"So you are? Staying, I mean?" Ellie asks.

Adelaide shrugs, gives her a soft smile.

"For now, yeah. I like what y'all have here. I like doing the patrols, feeling like I can contribute. Life was...y'know, kinda fucked up for a while, and sometimes you gotta go to a dark place to get you through. But it's good to know that the things I picked up, the skills, experiences--that they can be used to help. Y'know...instead of just--more hurting."

There's a silence as Ellie considers what she's saying, finds that it's hitting uncomfortably close to home. 

"God, Adelaide, way to get into your feelings," Adelaide laughs self-deprecatingly, "Didn't mean to get all weird and touchy-feely."

"No, I mean--I get it," Ellie says, "Things must have been pretty bad out east, huh?"

"Well...they weren't great, I can say that. After FEDRA abandoned the Charleston QZ, the hold outs banded together, formed this kinda militia. Became a lot more than that, after a few years. People in that area kept trying to make a go of it on their own, set up their own farms and whatnot, but the NUS would show up, demand loyalty and payments and all kinds of other bullshit. Nobody could make it long like that."

"Sounds like a bunch of thugs," Ellie says, "We've dealt with people like that."

"They're real organized, and really good at mind games and fucking with people. I had to finally get outta there after they killed my dad."

"Shit," Ellie says, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, it ain't _your_ fault. They showed up with conscription papers for my sister--they have this forced military service bullshit. My dad wouldn't let them take her. They shot him, took her anyway. He was...he was a good man. Tried to get my sister out, but--I couldn't do it. Finally hit the road with Daniel and...well, here we are."

"Forced military service?" Ellie repeats.

"Yeah... _citizen soldiers_ , they like to say. _Everyone, a soldier--soldiers, every one._ It makes sense on paper, but then they show up and drag people away just to throw them out as fodder for the infected or bandits or whatever the hell else they're fighting that week."

It sounds like the kind of nightmare Ellie narrowly avoided herself, having nearly become a soldier at the Boston QZ. She wonders, sometimes, what that might have been like--if it would really have been all that different from what she does now. 

It starts to rain with more persistence, and so they break off into a small side alley. It's only partially covered by the eaves of the buildings on either side, but it's something. Ellie leans up against the wooden panels of a wall--the beer is making her feel pleasantly light, but she needs to stop for a minute. Besides, the rain is nice--cool and easy against her skin.

"I've done a lotta talking," Adelaide says, leaning up against the wall beside her, "Which is...real stupid of me, 'cause...I'm actually kinda here to listen to _you."_

"Me?" Ellie says, lifts the glass of beer for another small drink, watches Adelaide over the rim; her hair is pleasantly disheveled, and Ellie wonders if it's intentional, a purposeful attempt to seem aloof and unconcerned and appealingly cavalier--and if it _is,_ well...it's not failing, "I'm not really a talker."

"I could, y'know…" Adelaide gives a small shrug, lifts her eyes to meet Ellie's, "I could get on board with that, too. Not talking."

"Yeah?" Ellie smiles into the glass, feels her heart rate both speed up and slow down.

It's not nervousness that fills her, like she might have expected, but something else. A slow and deliberate understanding that here, in this moment, she had control of the push and pull of this interaction. It's not like that with Dina, or even Cat. Not the same feeling. With Dina, especially, it feels like Ellie _never_ has the wheel, never has the power to steer the direction of things. Dina is _always_ in the lead, and Ellie is just following--which might have been okay, except that the destination was always _nowhere._ The destination was always Dina keeping her at arm's length, yet again. Not kicking her out, but not letting her in, either.

It's a realization that comes to her through a haze of bad beer, an understanding that seems suddenly crystal clear somehow. 

"Yeah," Adelaide says, smiling; she reaches out, takes the jar of beer from Ellie, "Can I be honest?"

Ellie watches as she takes a long drink from the jar. She hands it back; they're both damp from the rain, and Adelaide pushes a hand through her hair--it gains a soft gleam in the low light of the street. 

"I've kinda been hopin' you would _not talk_ to me for a while. Kept thinkin'--this is it, this is the patrol where she'll make her move. What gives, Williams?" She smiles teasingly, leans a little closer.

"It's…" Ellie starts to say, voice softer, "It's a little complicated--"

"Which is exactly why we _don_ 't have to talk about it," Adelaide says, barely a whisper.

Ellie hesitates only a second. 

Then she leans closer, kisses Adelaide, and her lips are unexpectedly cool and damp from the rain and it's good. It's very good. Adelaide reaches out, grabs hold of Ellie's jacket, pulls her over, pulls her closer. And it's not the same as Cat, not hesitant and uncertain and innocent, and it's not Dina--because Dina would never ask her to be this close, would never pull her in this way, would never want her like this.

That's what she tells herself. That's what she believes. That's how it feels, there in the dark, with a person she doesn't know as well as she should. It feels good, to be wanted, to be in control, to be let in instead of always stopped at the door.

And maybe talking with Adelaide doesn't give her exactly the same feeling--maybe there isn't that magic, that effortless communication. But _kissing_ Adelaide--kissing her is easy. It's very easy. 

It's not the same. But maybe that's for the best.

Maybe it's really for the best.


	5. I Can

_**DINA.** _

Dina's not a jealous person. Or she isn't _usually_ a jealous person. _Jealousy_ seems like such a small, petty thing to waste her time on. The world is on fire--who the fuck has time to get hung up on _jealousy_ ? It's just never bothered Dina, because she doesn't have any misgivings about who she is or what she's worth--which, incidentally, is a whole fucking lot. She's a survivor--smart and capable and fast on her feet. She's fought tooth and nail to be here, to keep breathing and being alive, and no one's going to taint that, the miracle of having _survived_ , by making her question her self-worth. 

Dina just doesn't _do_ jealousy.

She really doesn't. 

So what is it, this feeling down in her stomach, like a fucking hive of bees doing their best to make a break for it? This hot, visceral anger buzzing under her skin? Why is that when she looks across the dining hall at them, at Ellie and Adelaide, it feels like she's missed a step on the stairs?

This isn't like her. This isn't something she's ever dealt with before--not really. Sometimes Jesse would hang out with other girls whenever they were taking one of their breaks and that was annoying, but it didn't feel like _this._ Didn't feel like she couldn't breathe, like she wanted to break things, and cry, and cry while she broke things. 

She's sitting in front of her plate of eggs, not touching them, when someone sits down across from her.

"Cat," Dina says as the other girl folds her arms against the tabletop, "What's--"

"Okay," Cat interjects, "I'm gonna sound like a crazy ex-girlfriend and that's fine, I've made peace with it, but--what the fuck is _that?"_

Dina follows her gaze, even though she already knows exactly what Cat is talking about. Ellie and Adelaide have finished their breakfast and are heading for the back door; Ellie opens it up, stands back to let her through, and as Adelaide passes, Dina can see her draw a hand affectionately across Ellie's middle, sees her glance up into Ellie's face. Ellie grins back and there's a mutual want there and, honestly, it's a fucking devastating thing to see and Dina can't figure out why, can't seem to rationalize this away, can't seem--

" _Dina,"_ Cat says, "Seriously, what the hell--"

"I don't _know,_ Cat," Dina says, annoyed, though she's not sure if she's more annoyed at Cat or herself, "I guess she's just...really getting along with the new girl. Why don't you ask her yourself."

"And _you_ ' _re_ okay with this?" Cat asks skeptically.

"Why wouldn't I be--"

"Cut the _shit,_ Dina, Jesus," Cat snaps, and Dina finally really looks up at her.

"Excuse me?" Dina says slowly, trying to decide if Cat has lost her damned mind or not.

"You've had her wrapped around your finger for years--you're telling me it doesn't bother you, seeing her like that?"

"I haven't...that's not...we're friends. And it's really shitty for you to suggest I've been _manipulating_ her--"

"You're not _friends_ , Dina," Cat says emphatically, "You've never been _friends--_ "

"What the fuck--I do not have to sit here for this--"

"Did she even tell you? Did she tell you why we broke up?"

Dina stares back at Cat, reluctantly intrigued.

"She wouldn't talk about it," Dina says grudgingly.

"Yeah, because you guys _aren't friends,_ " Cat says in a disdainful huff.

"Are you going to explain what the fuck you're getting at or--?"

Cat takes a deep breath, all barely contained agitation. She looks down at her hands on the table, and some of the fire goes out of her.

"She, uh...she told me that she had _feelings,_ Dina. For you. I guess I always knew, and ignoring it worked for a while, but--I made her say it, and…"

Dina feels a cold, guilty chill sweep over her. She looks away from Cat.

"And…" Cat continues, watching Dina, "...and, holy shit--you _knew._ You knew, didn't you, this whole time."

Dina sighs, watching a spot on the far wall, unable to look back at Cat. She shrugs.

"She...I mean...we talked about it. Once. A long time ago. Before you guys started dating. She said, y'know...that she liked me. A lot."

"So...she was in love with _you_ the entire time she dated _me,"_ Cat says,"That's...that's fantastic--"

"No, Cat," Dina says quickly, "It's not--she's not _in love_ , it was never--"

"You know," Cat says, "I can almost understand Ellie, but you? You knew, all this time, how she felt--and you're still just dragging her around like this? God. That's fucking _cold."_

"I didn't--"

"You did," Cat says, "You _are._ I always thought you were just fucking oblivious but it turns out you're just a stone cold _bitch--"_

" _CAT,"_ Dina says sharply, leans across the table, "You're out of fucking line--"

"Am I? Do you even care about her at all? Like in any way? Or is she just yet another person in your fucking entourage, another worshipper at the fucking _altar of Dina--_ "

"I _do_ care about her--"

"You're a fucking liar--"

"Fuck you, Cat, you don't know anything about me--"

"I _do_ know you," Cat says, "You need people to love you, you need _everyone_ to love you, no matter how much it hurts them that you can't--or won't--love them back. Jesse, Ellie--you don't care what it does to them, so long as you get the fucking validation _you_ need--" Cat's voice breaks, "I _loved_ her, and _you're_ just _using_ her--"

Dina snaps, stands up, knocks her plate into the floor with one swift, impulsive motion; it clatters noisily and a hush falls over the dining hall and she wants to lean across the table and hit Cat, she wants it so much she can almost feel it, but the other girl is staring up at her defiantly through a haze of angry, shattered, unshed tears and Dina can't do it. Can't do it because maybe Cat is right. Maybe she's fucking right and Dina has been a complete and total monster. 

Dina takes a deep breath, aware of the eyes now on the two of them, but not really caring what anyone saw or heard or said at this point.

She leans against the edge of the table, and it seems like Cat is on the verge of full sobs, barely holding it in.

"Cat…" Dina says slowly, quietly, "I'm sorry. I am. But I care about Ellie. I…" Dina hesitates because the words are jamming up in her brain, because she wants to be honest, she does, she needs to be honest, "I... _really_ fucking care about her, Cat."

"That's it?" Cat says in her fractured voice, "That's the best you can do? You _really fucking care_ about her?"

"Goddammit, Cat, I'm _trying--"_

"Yeah, well, if you can't just _love her,_ if _really fucking liking her_ is the best you can do _\--_ then maybe you should fucking go away and let her have someone who _can--"_

" _I_ can," The words come out of her mouth, too loud, too forceful, before she can stop them and her face feels too hot and her eyes burn and she can't find her breath, fuck, _fuck--_

"I can love her," Dina says quietly, then, "I have to go."

She leaves the plate in the floor, leaves Cat at the table, leaves the hum of conversation behind her.

She has to find Ellie.


	6. Raccoon in a Trash Can

Dina leaves the dining hall in a daze, unable to catch her breath, unable to stop her thoughts from jumbling up, falling end over end in a rush of conflicting information. 

Is Cat right? Has she been the most selfish fucking person in the world? Fuck, she has, she really has, she's been--goddammit. She hadn't intended this, but did that even matter? What the fuck were her intentions worth?

Her feet move on their own, as if there's a magnet in her chest drawing her forward, pulling her, and she follows it and she doesn't know what she's going to do or say or how she's going to make this right, all she knows is that she needs Ellie, right now, like she's never needed her before--and she needs Ellie to know it, that she feels it, has always felt it. She needs Ellie to know that this was never one-sided, that she's been so fucking wrong--

She needs Ellie to know that she can--she can love her.

That she does love her.

That she always has.

And all of this terror, this fear in her, has been because she's pretty sure that she always will. That once she lets herself feel it and make it real, she won't be able to stop. It'll be beyond her control and then what? Then she just needs Ellie for the rest of her life? It's fucking terrifying, the idea of needing another person. The last person she'd ever needed--well, that had been Talia. And losing Talia had been like losing a part of herself, like taking a chisel and chipping off a fragment of her literal fucking soul and leaving it behind somewhere along the road to Jackson. 

If Dina knew anything, it was that needing people--it hurt. And since Talia, Dina had invested heavily in avoiding that kind of hurt--that dark, howling, bottomless kind of hurt. 

But it's too late. It really is. Because she's needed Ellie for a long time now, and hasn't been able to admit it, even to herself. Hasn't been able to admit it because it means that eventually, inevitably, more hurt is coming. 

Fuck it, though. Fuck it, because it's clear now that if anyone is worth it, if anyone has ever been worth the risk--it's Ellie. It's always been Ellie.

Maybe it won't change anything, but she has to tell her. She has to know. Now.

But when she gets to Ellie's, there's no answer at the door, and the lights are off. She's gone somewhere--with Adelaide, presumably.

"Fuck," Dina presses her hands to her face, covers her eyes, sits down on the little step outside the door. 

It feels like the world is falling in.

She drags in a deep, shuddering breath, lets it out slowly. 

Fuck.

\--

She waits. And she waits some more. The morning drags into afternoon and the afternoon drags into evening and there's still no sign of Ellie. Dina alternates between stubborn dedication to the waiting, and absolute certainty that she's fucking insane and that this is weird and that she should just go home. 

But as the dark begins to settle in, Joel comes out onto the back porch. He's nursing a cup of coffee, and he offers Dina a confused but supportive wave. She waves back, a little lifelessly.

"Hey," Joel calls across the yard, "You, uh--you eat dinner yet?"

She looks down at her hands, folded together between her knees. 

"I ain't got...like, a whole lot, but I got some of this banana bread of Esther's," He tells her, "It's not...it's not actual bananas, but--it's still damn good. You could, uh...you could take a break and come on in and have some. If you want."

Dina laughs softly, despite herself. She knows Joel isn't Ellie's real dad, but--damn, sometimes they're such an echo of each other that it's hard to believe. It's hard to hear that same hesitant awkwardness and not hear Ellie.

She gets up from the step, makes her way to the porch.

\--

Joel's right, it's not bad, the not-banana bread. Dina's not sure what it's supposed to take like, of course, because bananas didn't age well after everything went to shit--but she can appreciate it, nonetheless.

She takes another small helping from the aluminum foil it's wrapped up in. She hadn't even realized that she was, in fact, starving.

"So, uh...you and Ellie...have some kinda fight?" Joel asks, taking a drink of his coffee.

"Uh...no, not exactly," Dina says carefully, "I just...really need to talk to her."

"Got any idea where she is?" Joel asks.

Dina shakes her head, chews the not-banana bread slowly.

"Yeah, I noticed she was, y'know...hangin' around with a, uh...a new friend. One of them people from out east."

"Yeah," Dina says, "She, um...she's been really helpful and, uh...welcoming to them, so…"

"Well, now I know something's wrong, 'cause that don't sound like Ellie at all."

Dina gives the tiniest of laughs.

"It's the truth," Joel says, "I'd take a bullet for her and then some, but that girl's about as welcoming as one of those half-rabid damn raccoons I keep finding in my trash cans."

Dina laughs again, with a little more mirth this time. 

"She just, uh--she gets along with the girl, you know? Adelaide. So they've been spending a lot of time together, I guess."

"Hm," Joel says into his coffee cup, "You know…" He says slowly, "We try to vet before we give 'em full run of the place, we really try, but...the truth is that we got no way of really knowing the people who show up here. We can interview 'em all we want, but in the end--it's always a gamble, lettin' them in."

Dina listens, watching him. She takes another bite of not-banana bread.

"All I'm sayin' is...we don't know what we don't know about these folks. Maybe Ellie's found a, uh...a new friend. But you know her--she won't let me close enough to watch out for her, just in case something goes wrong. Which is why I'm always kinda countin' on you to keep her safe, best as you can."

Dina looks into the aluminum foil, the soft crumbs of not-banana. 

"I'm not sure I've been a very good...um--friend," Dina says quietly, "I think I really fucked up. Kinda why I need to talk to her. So I'm...I'm maybe not the best person to trust, Joel. To look out for her. I think...I think I may have really hurt her, actually…" 

And that's the first time she's said it out loud, that maybe she'd been a source of pain for Ellie, and it hits her hard.

Joel sets his mug down, breathes a big sigh.

"Well...that happens sometimes," He says, "With, uh...friends. Sometimes you care about a person so much, you start getting stuff tangled up. End up causing harm, 'stead of helping. World's a complicated place, there's a lot to figure out. What I know is that Ellie needs someone to look out for her. Someone who ain't faint of goddamn heart. She needs someone who ain't afraid of her, ain't afraid of her wild, raccoon-in-a-trashcan teeth--ain't afraid to get bit…"

He thinks a moment, leans back in his chair.

"I dunno--I think that sounds like you, kid," He says.

She gives a wry smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

"I'm always gonna look out for her," Dina says softly, "I just don't know if she'll always let me."

He sighs heavily, takes another drink of coffee.

"Welcome to the club," He says.

\--

When Dina leaves the back porch, it's dark outside, save for a dim little light over Ellie's door. 

She makes it into the dark yard just in time to see Adelaide pulling Ellie by the hand, down the path, toward the door. There's hushed laughter, and a lilting cadence to Ellie's whispering that tells Dina she's probably a little drunk. God, she loves just-a-little-drunk Ellie. Loves Ellie with her guard down. Soft and easy and quick to laugh Ellie. Loves when she thinks she's whispering, but she isn't whispering at all. 

And it's killing her, that she's not-whispering at someone else.

Adelaide leans back against the door, pulls Ellie in close. Ellie plants a hand on the door, leans in to kiss her, and it's a kick in the fucking gut, seeing the easy intimacy between them, something raw and magnetic and would it be the same? If it were Dina, instead of Adelaide--would it be the same? Could Ellie want her that way, that much? It's felt like it sometimes, like back in the factory, during the rain, but there's a sudden sense of doubt.

"Ellie," Dina finally says, and Ellie jumps, hand already on the knife in her back pocket.

"Dina?" Ellie says as Dina steps into the light of her doorstep, "What...the fuck?"

"I just--I just need one minute," Dina says, avoiding looking at Adelaide at all costs, "I just need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"I just--I need to talk to you--" Dina says it with more urgency, maybe a little bit of agitation, "I just need--fuck, just one minute, Ellie. That's all."

Ellie glances at Adelaide, as if she's considering it, considering if she wants to tell Dina no. And maybe this is it, maybe this is the time when Ellie will finally say it, will finally tell Dina no. 

But Ellie nods at the door.

"I'll...I'll be right behind you," Ellie says to the girl still leaned against the door, "Let me...let me see what Dina needs."

Adelaide glances at Dina, and Dina can't look at her but she can feel Adelaide's eyes on her, casting off something that seems suspiciously like pity--which only makes Dina feel all the more like breaking something, anything.

"Okay, babe," Adelaide says, "I'll wait."

Adelaide slips through the door, closes it behind her.

Oh, fuck, no. What did she just call her? Are you fucking kidding? What the actual, factual fuck--

"What's wrong?" Ellie asks when Adelaide is gone.

"Babe?" Dina repeats the word, spitting it out like it's a spoiled bite of food, like it has a tangibly foul taste in her mouth, "The fuck? How long have you known her? Like ten minutes?"

Ellie sighs, sticks her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

"Is that what this is?" Ellie asks, "You creep into my yard in the dead of night to do--this? Hasn't this gotten old to you yet, Dina?"

"Has what gotten old to me?"

"This...this," Ellie says with an emphatic shrug, "I can't do anything right with you, Dina. I don't know what you want from me."

"Ellie, you don't even know her, don't you think it's a little quick to just straight into slumber parties with new people--"

"You said to make them feel welcome," Ellie laughs, and it's a derisive, dismissive sound, "Well. That's what I'm doing. Making her feel welcome."

Dina stares at her with her chest feeling agonizingly emptied by the comment. There's a long stretch of silence.

"Does that piss you off?" Ellie asks, "Why? Dina, you've made it really clear, you know. How you feel about me. How you don't feel. And I'm not saying it changes anything about our friendship or what the fuck ever, but--I'm fucking human, Dina. I...I want to be wanted, like fucking everybody else. And I just can't keep...fuck," She looks away, takes a deep breath, "I can't keep doing this."

There's pain there in the way she says it, in the way the soft light over the porch catches in her eyes and Dina doesn't know what to say, just stares back at her with a feeling of helplessness. A sense of drowning. Overwhelmed and underprepared and losing track of what this was supposed to be about in the first place.

Because she's realizing that she's hurt Ellie. Really hurt her. Made her feel unwanted and Jesus Christ just putting the words together makes her feel like collapsing. Made her feel unwanted. Fuck. God, no. It's too much.

Dina nods, and she can feel the tracks of tears against her cheeks; she wipes them away stubbornly, looks down at her feet.

"Okay," Dina says in a wavering voice, "Okay. Yeah. She, uh...she makes you feel that? Wanted?" Dina asks, and it feels like she's dying, it really does.

Ellie looks at the door, thinking. She shrugs noncommittally.

"Yeah...yeah, I guess she does. Dina, I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything--"

"No," Dina says, "I think...I think maybe I've been the asshole. For a long time. I'm sorry."

"You're not an asshole," Ellie says, "This situation just got...way fucked up."

"Yeah," Dina says, "Way fucked up."

She can't say anything else. Because it's time to be un-selfish. Isn't it? It's time to do one fucking right thing and let Ellie have what she needs, what makes her happy, instead of forcing some sappy fucking confession on her out of panic and jealousy. If she ever tells her, really tells her, it can't be like this. It can't be selfish and jealous and scared. 

"I'm gonna go," Dina says, and her voice is too high and she hates it but she can't change it, "Ellie, just...just be careful, okay? I'm still…" She hesitates, because dragging the words out feels like trying to crawl through glass, "I'm still here. If you need me."

Ellie looks down, scuffs the toe of her shoe against the ground. She nods.

"Yeah," She says quietly, "Thanks."

Dina turns away, and she can feel Ellie's eyes watching her go and she's never felt so disconnected from her, so far apart, and that's the very worst part of it all--feeling suddenly untethered and alone in the world. 

Maybe she deserved this.

But it didn't make it any easier to crawl into bed when she got home, folding in on herself, as small as she can get.

It didn't make anything easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have listened to I Hate That You're Happy by Tiny Little Houses like 3000 times to get the feeling of this right and I think everyone needs to know that.


	7. Church

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little dark and heavy, y'all.  
> TW: assault.

_**ELLIE**_.

It had been hard last night, coming inside, closing the door behind her, hearing it snap shut, knowing Dina was on the other side, walking away. Walking home alone, through the dark. 

That conversation hadn’t felt right. It sat in her stomach, made her feel heavy.

Adelaide had tried to kiss her, once she was back inside, but that didn’t feel right, either. Nothing felt right. Adelaide didn’t ask any questions, but she offered to leave, if Ellie needed her to go. Not impatient or unkind, but certainly uninterested in any conversations about what was going on. 

Maybe that should have been a problem, but it wasn’t. Ellie understood it. Appreciated it, even. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings. She didn’t want to talk about any of it. She didn’t want to talk about Dina or Joel or David or Henry or Sam or Riley or anything. She wanted to look away from it all, wanted to shut it out. It was all too much, too big, and this was easier. Easier to tell Adelaide to stay, to pull her into bed, to let herself find distraction in this. She couldn't control the world outside and she couldn't control her own pain, her own deficits and failings; she couldn't control Dina or the way Dina made her feel _valid_ and _happy_ and _seen_ , but also _unsure_ and _unwell_ and _rejected_. 

But she could control these few moments, here with Adelaide, and it wasn't enough--but it was something. 

But now the sun is coming up and she's hardly slept. There's a dull ache in her head and a stillness in the room that should be comforting, but somehow it’s only making her feel worse. It’s making her feel more restless and unsettled. 

Adelaide is asleep beside her, in one of Ellie's flannel shirts, and it doesn't feel wrong. It doesn't. 

But something isn't right, either. And she can't shake the feeling that it's her, something inside, something that just won't fall into place; like a shattered gear somewhere inside her that won't turn with the rest, won't fit where it needs to go anymore. She doesn't have words for it, this feeling; it's easy to explain what's wrong when you have a broken bone, but when all your bones are fine and you still feel like maybe you're dying--what do you say then? What words do you use?

For Ellie the answer is _none._

She'd rather say nothing.

Because _nothing_ is easy, and safe, and in her control. 

But only barely.

\--

Dina isn't speaking to her.

Or maybe she isn't speaking to Dina.

It's really hard to know, and it's worse than it's ever been, and it only makes Ellie feel emptier and more tired than ever before. She doesn't feel guilty, exactly, because she'd told the truth, she'd said what needed to be said; but it didn't change the fact that she missed Dina. And it seemed strange and bewildering that after everything, in all its complexities, it came down to a feeling as simple as that: she missed Dina. 

But it still filled her with dread when, just a few days later, they were assigned into a group patrol together. 

The day had been uneventful so far, and Dina was staying firmly at Jesse's side, which was not at all like her. It bothered Ellie, though she couldn't explain why. Maybe their conversation had just reaffirmed her feelings for Jesse. Maybe without Ellie to prop her up, she needed Jesse more. Ellie wasn't sure, but it made her glad to have Adelaide there, along with Daniel and Ben and Alexander. Ben and Alexander were particularly helpful in providing distractions--they liked having long, loud conversations about some show they'd been watching, something about a comedian and his dumb friends. They'd spent the better part of the day lamenting the fact that the final disc was scratched, and maybe they would never know how it ended. 

"It ends with the world being overrun by fungus monsters, Alexander," Ellie had finally interjected at some point, "Not to ruin it for you, but that's how all the shows ended."

"You...are a downer, man," Alexander said, "You gotta lighten up."

But Ellie didn't feel like lightening up. Their frivolity only annoyed her, which wasn't fair--they were allowed to be happy, allowed to watch stupid shows and be normal. It was just that broken gear in her, chafing at her patience, her peace of mind.

It was getting dark when they got to the final checkpoint of the trip--an old school. Ellie volunteered immediately to go up and do the mandatory scan from the roof. She needed a few moments away, to get a breath and be alone. 

When she came back, the rest were setting up camp in the wide open space of the cafeteria, where the walls were still hung with spirited banners of roaring panthers and posters displaying food pyramids. 

In another life, maybe she would have gone to school here. Maybe she would have worn t-shirts with panthers on them and painted her face before football games and maybe she would have sat at a table right here and stared at a dark haired girl across the room, a girl regaling the rest of her table with a riveting tale of how she'd almost been caught cutting algebra that morning but had cleverly talked her way out of detention. 

Maybe she would have spent weeks working up the nerve to ask that girl to go to a dance with her and maybe that girl would have said yes. Maybe they would have gone to the same state college together. Maybe they would have had dumb fights, and then made up in a campus coffee shop over some pretentious flavor of tea. 

Maybe they would have gotten married. Been young and new and unburdened. Just normal people in a little apartment with a dog and friends who come over once a month because her wife loves to entertain and talk to people and maybe she likes it, too. Maybe she likes being around people as much as anyone else, because she hasn’t killed a single person. Hasn’t seen anyone die. Hasn’t watched anyone get ripped to pieces by a clicker. Hasn’t been to a place where they’re literally fucking eating each other. Hasn’t held the weight of humanity on her shoulders, the burden of a cure, and been unable to do absolutely fucking anything with it.

It’s interesting to think about, for a second. To imagine another Ellie, who isn’t injured this way. Who isn’t broken. An Ellie and a Dina who met under vastly different circumstances and lived a completely different life.

But that isn’t her reality, so she doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

Dina is quietly talking with Jesse, arms folded tightly across her chest. It doesn't look like she's slept. She's pale. Jesse leans in to say something to her and he looks concerned, lays a hand on her shoulder, and Ellie wants to ask, she should ask--but does Dina even want her to ask? Does Dina want her to care? What are they even doing? 

Dina looks up and for a fraction of a second, less than a heartbeat, their eyes meet and Dina doesn't look away. 

The moment is broken when Ben and Alexander burst into the room, carrying a couple of sloshing bottles.

"Look what Jim's been keeping in the principal's office!" Ben holds one of the bottles high--it's a whiskey, something cinnamon flavored.

"Why did they put fucking cinnamon in _everything?"_ Adelaide asks with a sigh beside Ellie.

"God, I don't know," Ellie says, "But it's better than nothing."

They finish setting everything up, fill out their log books, do another scan from the roof, and then it's back to the darkening cafeteria. No power or generators at this lookout, so they bring out a couple of flashlights and a kerosene lantern and the two bottles of liquor start their rounds.

It doesn't take Ben and Alexander long to start in on the singing. They warble through one old sitcom theme song into the next. They sing one particular song, like, four times, until Ellie is ready to chuck a flashlight right at their heads--what was the show called? _Pals?_ _Amigos?_ Something like that. 

Dina loosens up some, but she's still unnaturally subdued. Adelaide settles down next to Ellie. She hands her the bottle, and Ellie takes a long drink. The taste is warm and bitter and it goes down like a handful of lit matches--but she does feel more relaxed after a drink or two. Less like she's going to crawl out of her skin. The broken gear doesn't chafe quite as badly. 

They drink too much and listen to more songs that hardly even make sense anymore now, thirty years after the last TV show flickered off the screen. And Ellie watches Dina, because she doesn't seem well but Ellie doesn't know how to bridge this gap between them.

The night stretches on, gets thin, and she falls asleep leaned back against a wall, Adelaide nearby. 

Sometime in the night, she wakes up with a start, feels disoriented for a second--Ben's fallen asleep with is flashlight on, but everything else is dark, dim, eerily quiet and still. There's a rough semi-circle of gray, sleeping lumps in the floor around her. She can just make out Dina's face, curled up near Jesse but with her back to him--stubbornly alone. 

That's when Ellie realizes what's woken her up. 

Noises, from somewhere in the building. 

She stiffens, quickly counts the gray lumps in the floor again--one short. Who's missing?

Daniel.

She gets to her feet quietly, checks to make sure the knife is still in her pocket. Picks up one of the flashlights from the floor--moves toward the sounds of light, clumsy shuffling.

She finds a set of double doors, left ajar just enough for her to squeeze through. She finds herself in a long, narrow room full of dark, angular shapes. She swings her flashlight slowly across the space and the beam bounces dully back at her--it's a kitchen, still full of bulky metal equipment, long serving bars and dingy upright ovens with the windows smashed out. 

She continues sweeping the flashlight and doesn’t find any sign of movement. She steps further into the room, around the battered, dusty equipment and scattered debris. There’s a swinging door, in the back, and it’s still gently rocking on its hinge.

She edges toward the door, puts a hand out against the cool steel and pushes.

It’s Daniel.

“ _Ow,_ goddamit--” There’s a metallic crunch as he steps heavily on something, stumbles, catches himself.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asks.

He jumps a little. Stumbles again. He’s extremely drunk. Too drunk.

“Oh--I...shit,” He stammers, laughs, “I needed to go take a piss, and I got all...fuckin’ turned around in here and shit--”

She feels a sense of dread, and the little animal instinct in the back of her head says: _be careful._

“Okay, well--”

“Hey, you--you and Adelaide…” He slurs, leaning heavily against a dented steel table in the dark room, “You guys, uh--are you guys serious?"

“Daniel--you’re fucking drunk. I’m going back to bed--”

“Wait--” He says, and he lurches forward, grabs her arm, “I just--I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while, and the timing’s just never been right, y’know--”

“I need you to let me go,” Ellie says quietly, “Now.”

“Hey, Miss Ellie, I just...I really like you--”

“Are you fucking _blind_ ?” Ellie says, “Or just _stupid?_ Those are the only reasons for it not to be fucking obvious that I’m _gay_ , Daniel--”

“C’mon,” He says, pulls her in with hands like iron, gripping too hard, “Don’t be that way, y’know...I can be real good to you, girl--”

“Fucking _let me go,”_ She says it louder this time, no longer trying to preserve the quiet of the darkened building, no longer afraid of waking the others up.

“Shh,” He says close to her ear, too close, too fucking close, “C’mon, I can handle you--”

Her heart is in her ears, pounding out a staccato rhythm that’s equal parts fear and rage. She can’t fully see him in the dark, can only feel his breath, too close, the flannel of his shirt, stretched across his chest, the smell of cinnamon.

There’s a quick succession of movements, a fight that lasts only a few heartbeats but feels like several lifetimes. It’s a taut, frenzied moment when the tide could turn in either direction--but she gets one of her hands free and lashes out at his face, lands a blow against his chin and he reels back, cursing in a low, guttural slur; before she can get her footing in the dark there’s an impact against the left side of her face, a punishing back hand that knocks her into a set of shelves.

Disoriented and in pain, she feels suddenly fourteen again. Small and afraid behind a set of bars as David leans close, whispers how _she’s special._

She chopped him up with a fucking machete.

She did that. Fuck.

She can hear Daniel’s footsteps on the cracked tile floor and she tries to get up but there’s a blinding pain in her face and she’s--

_God, she’s so scared._

All at once, he grabs the front of her shirt, leans down, starts to say something.

 _“_ Don’t you worry, we’re gonna--”

The gunshot that rings out nearly deafens her, nearly shatters both of her eardrums but, god, she doesn’t care, she doesn’t care at all because Daniel stumbles away clutching his knee, falls down into the floor, screaming.

And there’s Dina, standing in the doorway, pistol still trained on Daniel in the floor. 

_“You fucking shot me,”_ Daniel sobs in the floor, “Jesus fucking Christ, you shot me--”

By now the rest of the group has heard the noise and arrived as well. Dina steps in, kneels down next to Ellie, keeps her focus on Daniel.

 _“_ Give me a reason to shoot you again, you _fuck--”_ Dina tells him, and her voice is shakey but her aim isn’t, “Are you okay? Ellie? Ellie, are you okay?”

“What the fuck is that?” Ellie asks, flashlight trained on Daniel, “What is that, on your fucking arm?”

His shirt has gotten torn in the scuffle, and there on his forearm is a tattoo. Simple, minimalist in design, but clearly an eagle, perched on crossed rifles, enclosed in a circle.

“You’re one of the NSU soldiers,” Ellie says, “You’re one of those fucking psychos, aren’t you? You’re weren’t running from them, you’re _one of them--”_

“Well so is _she_ ,” Daniel groans, points through the crowded room at Adelaide, lingering by the door, “Check her fucking arm if you don’t believe me.”

Adelaide stares at Ellie in the floor, eyes a little wide, trying to apologize through a look alone already and if there has to be an apology then there it’s true, it has to be true--

 _“_ She tell you some sob shit about her dad gettin’ killed? _She’s the one who fucking killed him.”_

“Ellie, I can explain--” Adelaide says.

“Her squad got sent on conscription duty, got sent to her own house to bring in her sister, and when her dad tried to stop her--bam. Fucking cold,” Daniel is still gripping his leg, rocking in the floor, “If you’re gonna fuck me up over it, you’ll have to fuck her up, too--”

“ _You attacked Ellie,”_ Dina practically screams at him, “That’s what you’re gonna get fucked up over, you piece of shit--”

“Ellie, it’s--it’s more complicated than that--”

“ _You_ need to go,” Dina says, moves to place herself between Adelaide and Ellie, still in the floor, unspeaking.

“I’m not...I’m not like _him_ ,” Adelaide says imploringly, “I’m not. I swear to god--”

“I said fucking _go--”_ Dina pushes her, hard, and Adelaide backs up. 

Adelaide fixes Ellie with a desperate, pleading stare and Ellie has nothing to say. Doesn’t know what to say. 

“C’mon,” Jesse says, puts a firm hand on Adelaide’s shoulder, “We’re gonna need to get back to Jackson and talk to Maria about all this.”

“What about me?” Daniel demands, “She fucking shot me, how am I--”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Jesse tells him, “Christ. Ben, Alexander--get him out of her. Get him a tourniquet and don’t be nice about it. We’ll let Maria decide what to do with him.”

Dina kneels down in front of Ellie again.

“Ellie,” She says slowly, “Ellie…are you okay?”

\--

It’s morning, and the light is beautiful up here in this second story room. It really is. Ellie sits in the floor of the old classroom, with it’s desks all pushed up against the walls, with all its posters and pinned up art peeling away, dissolving into nothing and she’s trying not to think. She’s trying to _be_ _nothing_. She’s trying to disappear. 

She closes her eyes, lets the sun hit her face, her swollen lip, her black eye. She lets the sun fold over every part of her aching face like maybe that will wash away the night before, the fear and the lies and the feeling of him so close, holding so tight. Maybe it will make her new, the sun--make her new and different and fix the broken gear, the wound.

But it doesn’t.

There are footsteps behind her, but she doesn’t turn. She knows those footsteps. Doesn't need to look.

Dina sits down beside her. Ellie doesn’t move, just keeps her arms wrapped tight around her knees.

It’s quiet and still and Dina waits a long moment.

“Ellie,” She says at last, her voice soft, like maybe they’re in church; and maybe they are, maybe this is as close as they'll ever get to _church_ , “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Ellie says, offers no elaboration.

Dina waits. The sun pours in.

“Ellie,” Dina says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I said _no,”_ Ellie repeats with more agitation, “I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”

Dina looks down into her lap. Waits. Looks back up.

“Ellie,” She says, “Ellie...do you want to talk about it?”

“Dina, fucking _go away,”_ Ellie says in a strangled shout, “Fucking go away and leave me alone, I _don’t want to fucking talk about it!”_

Dust motes drift in the light. Dina doesn’t move. She just waits. Her voice is softer than ever when she asks again.

“Ellie. Do you want to talk about it?”

And like that, like a rubber band snapping, the sobs rise up in Ellie, uncontrollable, unstoppable, and she folds into Dina, like a house collapsing in on itself; Dina wraps her arms around her without a second of hesitation, pulls her in tight, holds on.

Doesn’t let go.

" _I'm here"_ Dina whispers to her, pulls her in tighter, " _I've got you."_

" _I've got you."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song on repeat has been Ecstasy (Instrumental) by Crooked Still--especially for the last scene.


	8. Real to Me

_**DINA**_.

We grow up being fed a lot of bullshit about what it means, falling in love. That love is magic, that it possesses powers bordering on the divine. That it can deliver the lost and heal the wounded and that it will always rise above the dark, above the fear, above the evils of the world. And it will look pretty while it does it; it will be easy, it will do all the work for you, it will bring you home, all you have to do is close your eyes and trust it.

And maybe some of that is true.

What Dina knows, right now, is that this hurts. 

Because there’s a heaviness, a gravity, in witnessing this kind of hurt in someone you love.

And maybe that’s the crux of it. Maybe that’s the rub. Because maybe there’s magic and divinity, healing and deliverance, but there’s also pain. Because if Ellie’s joy is _her_ joy, then Ellie’s wounds are also her wounds.

And yet it’s not a burden she shoulders with dread. It’s not a chore.

Maybe that’s the real magic. Because she’s spent so long being afraid of her own pain, doing everything possible to avoid a single ounce of hurt--but now she’s here, feeling Ellie’s pain, and it’s a privilege, a gift; she would throw herself in front of the speeding train of Ellie’s grief a thousand times over and then some. She would take all of Ellie’s pain and feel it for her, if she could. But all she can do now is share it. All she can do is be present, and bear witness, and not turn away.

Ellie is haunting, in her pain, her brokenness; lying across from her there in Ellie’s bed, back in Jackson, Dina watches her, and Ellie watches back. There’s a softness, an openness in her face that isn’t like her, a vulnerability that reaches in and clenches a fist around Dina’s heart. 

They’ve been lying like this for a long time. Dina doesn’t know how long. It doesn’t really matter. She’s not leaving, not until Ellie tells her to go.

She reaches out, touches the bruise around Ellie’s eye with careful, gentle fingers; Ellie reaches up, puts her hand over Dina’s, and there’s a refreshed wave of tears rising up in her eyes.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” She says in a whisper to Dina.

Dina listens, cups her hand around Ellie’s face.

“Sometimes, Dina…” She tries to gather herself, but her words are just a shuddering whisper, “I don’t even feel real. I don’t even feel human. Dina, I think I’m too fucked up, I--”

She can’t go on. Her words dissolve into quiet sobs.

Dina pulls her in, and Ellie lets her; she hides her face in that space between Dina’s neck and shoulder and Dina holds her, tries to be more of that, tries to be her hiding place, if only for a moment.

“You’re real to me,” Dina whispers to her, “Ellie…” Dina presses her face into Ellie’s hair, closes her eyes, “Ellie, I need you. Like I’ve never needed anyone else. And I don’t know what that means yet, but...I just need you to know it. That you’re real, and you’re not too fucked up, and I need you.”

Ellie is quiet for a moment, until Dina hears her voice, small and hardly a whisper--

“I need you, too.”

\--

The days that follow are fragile. Ellie stays in bed, nursing a concussion and getting her headspace right again. It’s more downtime than Dina has ever seen her take before and it’s a relief to see it, to see her accepting, for once, that she’s human.

Dina goes to see her every day and things are different. It’s hard for Dina to pin down what it is, except that there’s an honesty between them now. A knowledge that-- _yes, there is something profound here, and figuring it out might take time, but we’ll get there._

Joel has to be dragged away from the holding cell where Daniel is being kept. He’s a force of nature, a goddamn grizzly bear that would have torn the building apart to get to Daniel, panel by panel, if it hadn’t been for the six or eight or ten guys that stopped him. Dina wasn’t sure, she lost count while watching the scuffle. Personally, she would have let Joel go. Let him charge in and do whatever Joel was going to do. 

It still sticks in her brain, the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten there when she did. She’d felt stupid that whole day, watching Ellie--but she could tell something wasn’t right. She’d only been half-asleep when she heard Ellie get up. She almost hadn’t gone after her. Had tried to convince herself that she was being crazy. 

But she did follow her, and if she hadn’t been so concerned with Ellie’s wellbeing, if she’d had just another second to consider it, she would have shot Daniel another half a dozen times.

It doesn’t take long for Dina to decide there’s a visit she needs to make, a loose end to tie up.

Dina goes out to the little huddle of cabins designed just for newcomers; when she knocks on the door of the right one, it doesn’t take long for Adelaide to answer.

The other girl pales visibly when she sees Dina, but there’s a firm set to her jaw that isn’t unlike Ellie, a resistance to showing fear.

“I think we need to talk,” Dina says, and it’s not a suggestion, “Mind if I come in?”

But she doesn’t wait for Adelaide to grant any permission, just pushes past her. The room is mostly bare, with only a few scattered belongings remaining. There’s an open duffle bag on the sofa.

“Going somewhere?” Dina asks.

Adelaide closes the front door, steps back, puts her hands on her hips, looks down at her shoes.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Adelaide says, “How’s Ellie?”

“Oh, I don’t think you get to ask about Ellie,” Dina says with a dry, dangerous kind of laugh, “Like, in any way whatsoever.”

“Dina,” Adelaide pleads, “You have to believe me. Yes, I...I served with Daniel, in the NUS Guard. And, yeah, we came out here together. But we were never _friends_ \--”

“Why not?” Dina asks, but she already knows the answer, “How did you come all that way and not consider him your _friend?”_

“I--” Adelaide stammers around the question.

“Because you knew he was dangerous?” Dina supplies for her, “Knew something we didn’t, and failed to warn us? Failed to tell Ellie? Put her, and all the rest of us, directly in danger?”

Adelaide closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

“I’m sorry,” She says, “I fucked up. I did. But I he would’ve outed me the second I said anything--”

“Yeah, the whole _she-killed-her-dad_ thing does make you seem a little fishy,” Dina says, arms folded over her chest, “I can see why you wouldn’t want people hearing about that.”

“It wasn’t...it wasn’t that _simple_ ,” Adelaide collapses onto the sofa beside the duffle bag, puts her head in her hands.

“They take you young, y’know,” She says, looking down into the floor, “Came for me when I was eight. Took me back to the compound. You go into this kinda group home, with all these other kids. Start training you with all these mind games and tricks…”

She breaks away, pushes a hand through her hair.

“I’m ain’t asking for your pity. I’m not gonna give you my whole sob story because it doesn’t change what happened to Ellie, and that I got a responsibility to bear in it. But they made me a soldier. Made it easy to survive, because all I had to do was close my eyes and do what I was told. It got...it got _too_ easy.”

“Yeah, _patricide_ comes real easy for everybody--”

“It was an accident,” Adelaide says, “I didn’t mean--I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. I just...I finally saw what it had done to me, and what it was going to do to Phin, my little sister. She was the wildest goddamn kid I’d ever seen--not afraid of nothing. I knew they were gonna try to break her, and she wasn’t gonna let ‘em, and then they’d just try harder…”

Adelaide shakes her head.

“I tried. I did. Phin was losing her goddamn mind-- _bit_ my commanding officer. And I...I snapped. I took a shot at him, my CO, but my dad...he must have thought I was trying to take a shot at Phin, because he jumped in front of my gun…”

She pauses, folds her hands together.

“My own dad--he thought I was gonna shoot her. Shoot Phin. He’d lost that much faith in me. And I can’t even blame him. I’d’ve lost faith in me, too…"

She rubs a hand across her face, looks up to find Dina watching, looking unimpressed.

“That’s it,” She says, “That’s the story. They still took Phin, and they would’ve executed me for treason except Daniel was in the cell next to mine and we managed to make a break for it. I never asked what he did to get himself there--maybe I just didn’t want to know. But that’s everything. No more secrets. I’m a fuck up--I fucked up my old life, and I’ve fucked up the new one, too.”

“If you think I’m going to feel sorry for you--”

“Jesus, I just said--I don’t want your pity. But I need people to know it ain’t like he said. I’m a fuck up but I’m not...I’m not like _him.”_

Dina studies her, tries to decide whether she’s being honest. 

“Can you just--can you tell Ellie I’m sorry? Please?”

Dina looks at the duffle bag. It doesn’t even have very much in it.

“You should probably go,” Dina tells her as she takes a step back toward the door, “Try your luck somewhere else. But if you decide to stay--and _maybe_ that could work…” Dina pauses to meet Adelaide’s gaze, “If you decide to stay, you stay the hell away from Ellie.”

For a moment it seems like Adelaide might try to argue, but then she deflates, and gives a nod of understanding.

Dina reaches for the door.

“What’s gonna happen to Daniel?” Adelaide asks, “Not that I care, exactly, I just--”

“Maria’s exiling him,” Dina says, “Giving him a backpack and sending him on his way. She’s a better person than I am. If you happen to run into him out there, you tell him that if I ever seem him again...I’ll fucking end him.”

Dina doesn't wait for Adelaide's response, just opens the door and steps back out into the cool autumn sunlight.


	9. Max Revenge

**_ELLIE._ **

The interior of the truck smells like stale cigarettes and old vinyl and sweat, but that’s okay. It hardly bothers her, especially once she rolls the window down, sticks her hand out into the current of air slipping past the window. Lets her hand sway against the push of it. Feels it against her face, cool and a little damp with the deepening autumn.

There’s an easy stillness here in the cab, where there’s only the hum of the tires against the pavement and a low sound drifting out of the radio--a Johnny Cash cassette tape left in the deck probably since the original owner had gotten out from behind the wheel for the last time. 

_“--you’ve got a way to keep me on your side_

_You give me cause for love that I can’t hide,_

_For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide,_

_Because you’re mine,_

_I walk the line--”_

She feels a touch against her hand, the one still resting against the cracked vinyl seat beside her; she turns away from the window, finds Dina watching the road, one hand lazily propped on top of the steering wheel--but she’s also watching Ellie. _Checking in._

Ellie opens her hand, and their fingers twine together easily, comfortably. Ellie applies a reaffirming pressure. _I’m okay._

The events at the old school are still fresh in her mind--the frenzied fight in the dark, the smell of cinnamon on his breath, Dina’s pistol hammering against her ear drums, gun smoke and screaming and blood, crying in the sunlight with Dina wrapped protectively around her--and maybe they’re not gonna go away any time soon. There’s a sting to Adelaide’s betrayal that has little to do with Adelaide and everything to do with Ellie--she should have known better, but she let herself be blind, closed her eyes on purpose. 

Dina had relayed Adelaide’s story and Ellie felt like she didn’t have anything to hold against the other girl. Maybe she was just too tired to be angry, but she felt like she could understand what it was like, clumsily searching for redemption, for a new life, only to fuck things up.

Still, she wasn’t in any kind of hurry to talk to Adelaide herself.

But Dina--Dina had hardly left her side since that night. Most of the time she was very good at being casual, but Ellie knew she was checkin in, trying to gauge Ellie’s wellbeing. And there was a time when that might have been too much, when she might have gotten frustrated with what amounted to _emotional babysitting_ , but--it’s different now.

“So when are you gonna tell me where we’re going?” Ellie asks over the hum of the music.

“I told you, Boston…” Dina says, eyes on the road, “It’s a surprise.”

“Surprises very rarely work out for me, so I have some concerns,” Ellie says, but she smiles. Or she tries to. She still feels so heavy, disconnected.

“This one’s gonna work out,” Dina promises, “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Barely,” Ellie says, grins at Dina’s exaggerated offense.

“You’re funny,” Dina says, “You should take your act on the road, be a traveling comedienne.”

“Is that was this surprise is? Are we going on tour? Starting a band?”

“It’s--”

“ _\--a surprise_ , I know,” Ellie finishes for her, “I wish you would at least give me a hint.”

“You’ll see,” Dina says evasively, “Just keep it together over there, Boston.”

Ellie rolls her eyes, leans forward, turns the radio up; a new song pours out.

“-- _I’m goin’ to Jackson,_

_I’m gonna mess around._

_I’m goin’ to Jackson,_

_Look out, Jackson Town--”_

Ellie leans back against the seat, keeps her hand around Dina’s, and everything feels just about right.

\-- 

It’s getting dark when Dina finally slows the truck, pulls off the road; Ellie is confused, because for a moment it looks like an empty field. There’s a little building toward the middle of the long, grassy space, and at the far end a single, enormous concrete wall.

But Dina pulls down a little path of packed dirt, out toward the center of the field. Once the truck is stopped, facing away from the big concrete wall, Dina kills the engine and it gets quiet.

“Yeah,” Ellie says, looking out across the vast _nothing_ , “This is...something. How’d you keep this under wraps? You know, if you’re into empty fields, we have, like--a hundred of them back in Jackson--”

“Keep cracking jokes,” Dina says, “It’s gonna make this even better for me.”

“Are you...are you gonna murder me?” Ellie asks, and Dina leans over to punch her shoulder lightly.

“I mean it,” Ellie laughs, “Big empty field in the middle of nowhere, all secretive and cryptic--”

“Do I look like a murderer?” Dina asks.

Ellie smiles, leans back against the seat, catches her gaze.

“No,” Ellie says, “No, you look...not like a murderer.”

 _You look like home,_ she wants to say. _You look like safety and warmth and the place I wanna be, always._

But they’re not there yet. They’re somewhere, Ellie knows that much. She can feel it in the way Dina’s hand never wants to leave hers. In the new way Dina is looking at her, this way that says maybe she thinks Ellie looks like home, too. 

But they’re not quite ready to say it, and that’s okay. This is a comfortable place to be, with no expectations or parameters. Ellie hasn’t even asked about Jesse, what the status of Dina's relationship wuth him is--because it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it should, but it just doesn’t. For now it’s fine to just let things be what they are, and let the details sort themselves out later.

“ _You look not like a murderer_ ,” Dina repeats, “Wow, that’s--that’s quite a compliment. Does that line work on all the girls or…?”

“I mean, it’s not my _best_ line, no--”

“Oh, yeah?” Dina says; she smiles, leans in, “So you _do_ have a best line?”

“Oh, I’ve got...I’ve got a _ton_ of lines,” Ellie says, trying and failing to keep a straight face, “I’m very charming, Dina, have you not noticed?”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Dina says, “Although I’m not sure we’re using _charming_ in exactly the same way,” She laughs, “Okay, Boston--hit me with it.”

“With _what?”_

“The best line, duh. C’mon. A totally gorgeous girl comes up to you--what do you say to her?”

“Is this...like a trick question?” Ellie asks, but she’s mostly thinking how nice it is, having Dina close, joking this way again, “I feel like this question could get me in trouble.”

“ _Ellie--”_ Dina rolls her eyes.

“Okay, okay,” Ellie says; she clears her throat, gathers herself, fixes Dina with an intent, simmering stare--but a grin pulls at her lips.

“Hey, baby,” Ellie says in her best, most smoldering voice, “If you were a chicken--damn, you’d be _impeccable.”_

Dina immediately begins to laugh, looking equal parts amused and horrified. Ellie laughs, too, and it feels good, laughing over something so stupid. It feels good to have made Dina laugh again.

“That’s... _wow,”_ Dina says, almost in tears, “That’s...yeah, I get it now, I see why all the girls are lining up for you.”

Ellie gives a little shrug, watches Dina.

“Eh,” She says easily, “I think they’re gonna be waiting in that line for a while.”

Dina leans back against the seat, smiles in a content way, a way that makes Ellie feel content, too.

“Good,” Dina says softly; then she sighs, puts her hand on the driver's door, "Alright--are you gonna help me lay out these blankets or what?”

"Blankets?” Ellie asks.

But Dina’s door is already groaning in protest as she opens it and slips out into the grass--so Ellie follows suit.

Dina gives her some instructions, has her lay out several assorted layers of blankets and sleeping bags in the bed of the truck, but somewhere in the process of it all, Dina goes missing. 

Ellie doesn’t realize it until she looks up from straightening out a sleeping bag and notices that it’s dark, really dark--and she hasn’t heard Dina’s voice in several minutes.

She leans out over the side of the truck bed, scans the tall, dark grass, finds nothing. There's only the gentle chirping of insects and the glow from a battery-powered lantern in Ellie's hand.

“Dina?” She calls, “Dina?!”

And then a sound from the little building in the center of the field, just a few yards away--like a motor starting. A generator, maybe. A light flashes from a little square, black hole in the building, and then Dina appears again, trotting back toward Ellie.

“What...what is all this…?” Ellie asks as Dina climbs into the bed of the truck with her.

“Shh,” Dina says, and she arranges a hedge of bedding, leans back against it, pulls Ellie down to lie beside her, “It’s starting.”

And Ellie realizes that up on that blank wall of concrete, there’s a massive, flickering image--a projection. There’s a small cartoon in black and white, a dancing box of popcorn, a cup of soda.

“Holy shit,” Ellie says, laughing, “How the hell did you do this--”

“Hold on,” Dina says, “Wait.”

A title card appears on the screen:

_Robosoldier 4: Max Revenge_

_“HOLY SHIT,”_ Ellie exclaims, sits up, gives Dina an excited shove against her shoulder, “ROBOSOLDIER?”

“Yeah,” Dina laughs, looks up at her with happy satisifcation, “ _Robosoldier.”_

“I didn’t even know there was a fourth one! I’ve only seen the first two.”

“Well, there’s no sound,” Dina says, “So we’re gonna have to make it up on our own."

“Oh, shit--I love this,” Ellie says and she leans back next to Dina.

“ _Wife,”_ Ellie says in her best Robosolider voice when he appears on the screen, “ _I have terrible news.”_

The camera cuts to a woman, and Dina steps in.

“ _Um, yes, what’s the terrible news, Robosoldier, I mean, husband?”_

“ _I never told you, but I fell into another vat of acid, and the doctors say I don’t have any choice, I have to go...full robo.”_

_“Full robo...oh, no.”_

_“Full robo. But first...I have to find revenge. I guess. Because that’s in the title. The revenge.”_

_"What kind of revenge_?"

_"Max revenge. Because...again, that's the title. So, like, the most revenge...a lot of revenge."_

_"So not a little bit of revenge--"_

_"No, wife, the most revenge. All of the revenge--"_

They laugh and Dina moves close to her, leans her head against Ellie’s shoulder. And for now, life isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s really fucking good.

It doesn't take long for Dina to get sleepy and still next to Ellie. And it's too good, too perfect to be real, but here they are, here she is, with Dina falling asleep against her and the best Robosoldier sequel she's ever seen flickering overhead in the night and if only-- _If only--_ it could last forever. 

But she knows better.

"What do you say, Boston," Dina asks in a low, drowsy voice next to her, "Was this a good surprise?"

Ellie smiles, shifts her arm to make Dina more comfortable, puts it around her shoulders. Dina leans further in against her, head just under her chin, closes her eyes.

"This was a great surprise," Ellie tells her in a soft hushed voice, "You're fucking amazing."

"Yeah," Dina sighs sleepily, "I know."

Ellie tries to stifle the laugh so as not to disrupt Dina's comfortability.

"Dina...?" Ellie says quietly after a moment.

"Hm?" Dina acknowledges her with a tired noise.

"Do you still think my heart is an old microwave?"

She tries to make it sound like a joke but there's been part of her that hasn't been sure, has had it's doubts. Like maybe that thumping she feels in her chest really is just a busted piece of junk.

"No," Dina says, and she folds an arm over Ellie's middle, almost protectively, "Not an old microwave...maybe one of the newer models--"

Ellie scoffs lightly in mock offense.

"Kidding," Dina says, "I'm kidding. Whatever your heart is, Ellie, it's perfect and I love it."

Ellie gives a quiet smile, leans her head back against the cab of the truck. Dina shifts, gets more comfortable and they’re only about three-quarters through the movie when she falls asleep there, with Ellie’s arm around her shoulders. And Ellie knows she needs to tell her, had planned to tell her today, but this had been too good. This had been too perfect. 

This broken piece in her, this fractured gear, this malfunction--she knows it’s tied to what happened in that hospital back in Salt Lake City. And if Joel won’t tell her, if he won’t stop lying--then she has to go see for herself.

And this is one place where Dina can’t follow her. One trip she has to make alone.

Maybe she’ll tell her tomorrow. Tell her that she’s leaving.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's Song on Repeat: Drive Darling by BOY


End file.
